


Everlasting

by bravest_person_in_Wonderland



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Tuck Everlasting - Natalie Babbitt
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Literary References & Allusions, Post-Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28438230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravest_person_in_Wonderland/pseuds/bravest_person_in_Wonderland
Summary: Looking back is something to look forward to.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Everlasting

She remembered reading _Tuck Everlasting_ as a young teenager, feeling the odd sense of bittersweetness and longing for adventure it stirred up. She remembered thinking that, had she been in Winnie Foster's shoes, she would have drank. She had longed for that kind of adventure, the freedom to take as many risks as she wanted with no fear of death and to travel the world free of the limitations of time. 

The time part she had experienced with the Doctor, and she got to travel much farther than her own world. But from the very beginning, or shortly thereafter -- when she and her first Doctor were trapped on that Soviet submarine -- the death part had been in the back, and sometimes the forefront, of her mind. Life with the Doctor was spectacular, but had the unfortunate chance of turning deadly in an instant. 

Now she understood why Winnie hadn't drank the magic water. The first few days, weeks even, flying about with Me across the cosmos, jumping into adventures that would have terrified her had she still been mortal, were exhilarating. But it quickly wore off. 

She wasn't yet ready to return to Gallifrey, face those horribly stuffy Time Lords and their fancy technology that would enter her back into her proper timestream and return her to her death. She wasn't yet ready to fade from existence, but she did understand now. She understood things she hadn't when she had first read that small novel back in Year 8, and even things she hadn't understood when she had taught the book to her own class. 

She had read the final chapters aloud to her students and watched with familiarity and empathy the way some of their faces went blank, turning over the implications and weight of the story in their minds. The idea of eternal life, the inability to die no matter how much one longed for it, and having to make that decision for one's self -- live forever, or truly live? -- put even the most clownish students in a philosophical turn. 

So yes, Clara Oswald understood far more than she ever had about the fictional Tuck family. She understood the longing for the past and mortality, the desperate loneliness of being immortal even with another by her side. She understood Winnie Foster's decision in a way she never could have before the raven, because she now knew that if she had been in the character's shoes, she would have chosen the same. 

"You don't need to live forever," she murmured across the console to Me one day, "You just need to truly live."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm American, so I don't know if schoolkids in England read stuff like Tuck, so if that's inaccurate, I apologize. It just felt way too relevant to pass up. :)
> 
> Also I had to Google what years in England match what grades in America so I hope I got that right...


End file.
